I hear you calling in the dead of night
by Forever Siriusly Sirius
Summary: Grey. Everything was a dark, colourless, grey. Like ashes, like something dead. The city rose up around you, the tall, ashen buildings castings shadows to block out the light. You were sinking deeper into the darkness, surrounded by people who inflicted pain on you in the name of family, in the name of Black. You raised your head. You may have been weak, but you weren't broken.


**For**: Quidditch League, Round 13. Also for Bree in GGE.

**Prompts**: Nightmare, Silver, Therapy, All Time Low.

_In a city of fools,  
I was careful and cool,  
But they tore me apart like a hurricane...  
A handful of moments I wished I could change  
but I was carried away._

Therapy, All Time Low.

**Note - This takes place pre-azkaban, by the way. **

* * *

**_I hear you calling in the dead of night_**

Noise. There was noise everywhere. It was drowning you, suffocating you, enveloping you. You couldn't breathe. All you could hear was the noise.

There was yelling, screaming; verbal insults that hurt more than any spell, more than any weapon. There was the sound of your mother's voice sadistically hurling curses at you, voice full of menace. There was the sound of your father's belt hitting bare flesh. There were cries, the sound of your pain resonating through the air like an incessant siren. Inescapable. Not even time could block out the noise. Irreparable. Not even time could fix the damage.

The noise filled your ears, it filled your mind. No matter how fast you ran, it always caught up to you.

The sound that demanded the most attention, however, was the sound of silence. The silence in which your brother stood by, doing nothing, saying nothing. The silence of not being able to tell anybody or of nobody being willing to listen. Not your mother when your father hit you; not your father when his mother cursed you. Not your aunt when she came to visit or your uncle when he called. There was no one around to hear your silent pleas.

Grey. Everything was a dark, colourless, grey. Like ashes, like something dead. The city rose up around you, the tall, ashen buildings castings shadows to block out the light. You were sinking deeper into the darkness, surrounded by people who inflicted pain on you in the name of family, in the name of Black. You raised your head, like you always do. You may have been weak, but you were still proud. You were not so easily beaten. Your face was blank; you had to be careful in this city of fools. The slightest slip and their mocking faces would gleefully tear you apart, piece by piece. You would die with the sound of their laughter ringing in your ears. They would win. You could never let that happen.

Their voices carried on the wind, faces plastered on the walls of the buildings; you had never felt so small in your life.

"Siiiiiiiiirrrrrriiiuusssss..." your name was whispered, like a breeze, soft and gentle, but with a hint of maliciousness. It was the voice of your mother, acting as the wind. You stood still, the fear inside of you caused your hands to shake and threatened to crack your carefully constructed mask, but you wouldn't let it. You wouldn't go down without a fight.

The breeze swirled around you, black in colour, rising and falling and rising and falling as it encircled your feet, trapping you.

The breeze pushed at you, gently, trying to get you to move; to break and fall to pieces, to give up. But you stood your ground.

"You're a failure, Sirius," the voice mocked. You could easily imagine the twisted face of your mother, sneering and snarling as you disappointed her once again. "You failed me, made a fool out of me. Useless."

The breeze thickened, and rose higher so anything below your legs was a hidden in a swirl of black. The air was icy, so icy; you felt a chill run down your spine, freezing the blood in your pale veins. Your breath misted in the air. You no longer knew if you were shaking from fear or from cold. Your mother's voice abused you, the verbal jabs stung more and more each time. You shouldn't care, you know you shouldn't care, but you do. The words still affect you now, in your dreams, like they did all those years ago. You can never escape them. The wounds inflicted on you will never stay closed, no matter how many times they get sewn up.

_Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out_.

All you had to do was remember to breathe.

It's the advice you told yourself over and over again. It was your mantra. You just had to stay careful and cool in this city of fools, you just had to breathe.

The breeze turned to smoke, and it rose, coiling around you like a snake about to constrict its prey. Your lungs started to give out. It was like hands, reaching for you, and never letting go. Every time you opened your mouth to breathe the smoke slid in, filling your throat, sinking down to your lungs so every breath was pain.

You were only human, made of soft flesh, crimson blood and fragile bone. You were only human in a world where human wasn't good enough. The crowd, once shapeless figures, took form. Their faces twisted into your family, no longer was it just voices that called to you in the dead of night. Now they had faces.

Mother. Father. Brother. Cousin. Aunt. Uncle.

The taunts grew louder. The smoke grew thicker. Your chest grew tighter. The calling got louder.

'_Come back to us, Sirius.'_

_'They don't want you, Sirius.'_

_'We're your real family, Sirius.'_

_'Come home, Sirius.'_

Voices reached out like tendrils, wrapping around your wrists, coaxing you into the crowd, enticing you to be one of them, a face hidden behind a white mask, identities forever unknown. The abuses from your mother faded into the background, as cries for you to be the prodigal son intensified. They built up and up and up and up, getting louder and fiercer. The voices were strong, almost irresistible with their smooth melodies enticing you back where you belonged, back to Black, always back to Black.

You didn't know how much longer you could pretend to be put together. How long until the cracks began to show? Seconds? Minutes? Hours? Days? What happens when they do?

The nightmare changed, the crowd became everyone you love, but not quite.

James was there, with his arrogant smirk, his arm wrapped around a smiling Lily's waist. There was Remus, careworn and haggard; Peter, beady eyes darting everywhere. There was Marlene, your beautiful Marlene looking around as if trying to find someone. _Me, _you think gleefully.

You feel your face break out into the widest of smiles, not realising that the smoke is only invisible not gone. Your heart lifts with relief; your friends are here, your family, your brothers, your sister, your Marlene. Your home. The nightmare was over, the grey would fade out to silver and the darkness slither away, banished to the alleys where it came from. Everything would be better.

"James!"

Your voice sounds weak, and raspy, but it was loud enough that James should've heard. But James didn't react He continued his conversation with Lily, and gave no indication that he heard anything.

Your smile didn't fade, not just yet. You were Sirius Black, King of Hogwarts with James. You were the boy who simultaneously lost and gained everything in the moment where you chose to leave it all behind. You chose a cigarette burn over family pride. You didn't break so easily.

You tried again, and again, but you were losing your voice. You tried to run forward, tried to get their attention. The smoke was starting to appear to again, a deep rich purple and grey and black, mixed with the mocking laughter. It formed a chain around your foot, anchoring you to the ground. Your ship was going down, but you still weren't broken. You hadn't sunk yet.

Painfully you watched them go about their daily lives; it was like you never existed.

_'They don't want you, Sirius.'_

_'They forgot you, Sirius'_

_'We know who you are, Sirius.'_

_'We'll never forget you, Sirius.'_

The voices whispered around you, soothing, as if they alone would ease the pain of being forgotten.

James showed no signs of someone who had just lost his best friend, rather, you noted, he looked happier than ever.

You don't know what was more painful, seeing James without you and knowing he could still be happy or seeing Marlene with a man you vaguely recognised as Gideon Prewett.

The worst, you decided, was Lily announcing it was time for a 'Marauder photo'. James, Peter and Remus stood together; Moony, Wormtail and Prongs. There was no space for Padfoot. No space for you.

Each scene was another stab to the heart, the smoke constricted tighter and tighter, coiling around you, rising up, up, up, until it reaches your throat. It invaded your mind like a poison.

_Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out._

You were hyperventilating; panic filled you like a wave, suffocating you. You couldn't breathe. Your lungs were giving in.

_You're not as strong as you seem._

The cracks were starting to show. It was like you were made of ice, and one small crack expands and inflates, like a swollen river, running down the length of your body. _Crackcrackcrack_. Your cool facade was breaking. You tried to glue yourself back together, stop the flow of the water. But trying to piece together a broken mask is dangerous when you were facing the now faceless crowd.

_Who needs people, when you've got yourself? Love yourself so no one else has to; spare yourself the pain of watching them fall asleep without you. Spare the pain of seeing your memory erased. Spare yourself the pain of knowing they don't need you like you need them. Spare yourself the heartbreak of being abandoned, again, by the people who claim to love you._

The game of tug of war started again, the black and purple tendrils of smoke wanted you to go 'home', to be the prodigal son; to wear black and don a new, white, crackless mask. On the other end was a little voice in the back of your head, reminding you of the pain caused by your so called 'families'; both of them, your family by blood and your family by choice. The smoke coils tightened, pulling you to the crowd. The voices called to you, in this nightmarish fantasy world, and they were almost irresistible.

You were sinking so deep into the blackness, too deep to be pulled out. Your cracks widened, so wide it was impossible to glue them back together. Your heart was shattered, a wall of ice erected to keep the pieces together. You were almost broken, but not just yet.

The smoke swirled faster, the voices pulled harder. You were being torn apart, like a hurricane. You couldn't see a thing, blinded by the wishes of others. Blinded by their hate and blinded by your own pain. The walls around your shattered heart, protecting it, were crumbling.

_'Sirius.'_

Another voice joined the tug of war, this one pure and sweet, but anxious. It was different than others, it wasn't telling you to join your family. It wasn't telling you to cut everyone out of your life and spare yourself the pain. This voice lacked the malevolence, lacked the maliciousness of the others. It triggered something in the back of your hazy, poison filled mind. This voice seemed to be pure silver, almost like a patronus.

_'Sirius!'_

The voice was more urgent now, it filled the air with its silvery glow. It halted the ferocious whirling of the black smoke, it shut out the other voice in your mind. You found you could breathe again, and your mind was filled with a clarity that had been lacking before. The voice sharpened his mind, unblurring the line between fantasy and reality. You found yourself following this voice, this beautiful, silvery voice that came calling in the dead of night. You followed it to another world. A world without black smoke and voices, a world without the grey city and the blackness. A world full of silver and light. You found your eyes groggily opening, your body drenched in sweat. For a moment you were shocked, no longer were you trapped in a nightmarish world set out to break you. Now you had a pair of slim arms around you, your head was buried in her neck, and her hand was gently running through your hair.

You breathed in.

The familiar smell of Marlene filled your nostrils, and tears of relief involuntarily leaked down your ashen face.

Her soothing voice whispered words of comfort in your ears; _i__t's not real; it was just a bad dream; I'm here; I love you,_ over and over again. You stayed like that for hours, her holding you, whispering to you, calming you, until you pulled back. A slow smile spread across your face.

"You remember me," you whispered hoarsely, voice full of wonder and happiness. You leaned your forehead against hers and cupped her face with your hands. "You're real, you're mine. You're here."

Marlene leaned forward, so their lips were almost, but not quite, touching.

"I'll always be here."

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A/N Please review/favourite! Bree, darling, I hope you liked this.


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